An overview of other healers: Druids

As with previous posts in this series, this is just an overview. And I hope for and expect several experienced druid healers to correct and expand my remarks. When you do so, however, please remember this blog is for the priests who may have no clue what thisweirdname spell might be — be gentle, please. That said, off to the humiliation. [And having received corrections, edits can be found throughout.]
The druid is a frequent substitute for the priest in the healer role. For the “big three” (HoT, quick and small, big but slow) spells we can make some generalities: The druid’s spells take a bit longer to do the same thing yours do, but they heal just a little bit better when they’re finished. Over time, then, you’ll cast more frequently but be about even for total heals — if, of course, you were just racing for delivering healpoints instead of concentrating on heals. Just like you, the healing druid can use talents to improve speed and mana efficiency. Staying strictly in the big three area, the Druid’s got one more advantage — much better damage mitigation. He can wear better armor, and if things get really bad he can shape-shift to bear form. Worth pointing out here is that while shifted he cannot heal — but then, you can’t heal well when you’re George, either. Now for a few details.
Healing Touch is the Greater Heal equivalent. It takes 3.5 seconds base (vs 3.0), uses a bit more mana, and does a bit more healing.

Regrowth is the Flash Heal equivalent, but it’s got a twist. It takes 2 seconds to cast a really dinky heal, but it immediately continues with a 21 second (7 tick) HoT. By the time it’s done it again is a bit more mana for a bit more healing.

Rejuvenation is a basic HoT. One less tick, a bit less mana, a bit less health. It’s slightly worse health per mana than ours, but each tick is a bit more than any single tick from a roughly equivalent renew.

The Druid also has three healer-related/supportive spells of which you should be aware so as to work in what you can and can’t do. First, there’s the Druid’s AoE heal — Tranquility. Nice spell in terms of actual health and mana, it’s got two real problems. First, it’s a channeling spell. Second, it’s got a ten minute cooldown. If EVERYBODY needs big heals NOW, this is great — but somebody has to keep the druid from being George.

Another spell – one that’s going to have you being old pal old buddy to your nature lover – is innervate. For 20 seconds your mana recovery is 100% while casting, and if you’re dancing the five second waltz it’s at 400%. [In comments I’m told this is wrong, but as of now there are disagreements to small details. Basically, however, it’s AT LEAST 400% during casting, maybe 500% – I’ll clarify when the druids get done discussing it below.] I do not know if this stacks with meditation — allegedly they (and other mana regen tools) were made ineligible for stacking, but some testers are reporting stack-type effects for some combinations. Even if it doesn’t, however… 400% of your mana regeneration is very, very nice. The downside? Six minute cooldown. On a long bossfight you might see it twice. Or you might not – it depends on who the Druid thinks needs more mana.

The final spell I think you the priest need to know is Rebirth. Quite simply, it’s a resurrection spell. The nifty part? It can be cast during combat. (hmmmm). The downside? 30 minute cooldown.

[And I just thought it was the last spell. Two more were mentioned. Lifebloom, which is a HoT that ends with a burst, but can be stacked with each stack continuing the ticking. And then there’s the talent swiftmend, which basically causes the HoTs to be used as instants. That is, Rejuv and Regrowth do all their healing RIGHT NOW. The only downside is it’s a 15 second cooldown and uses a decent chunk of mana.]

That’s it in a nutshell. Generally if you’re working with druids, you’re faster, and you’ve got lots better AoE heals. Their spells are more powerful, and they have a couple of supplements that will help you out.

And with that, I’ll let the druids take it away with corrections and addendums.

—
(on Innervate)
For 20 seconds your mana recovery is 100% while casting, and if you’re dancing the five second waltz it’s at 400%.
—

Read the tooltip closely! It increases your total regen by 400%, and 100% of your regen works while casting (so you receive 400% additional mana regen the whole time). That means that the 5 second rule does not matter. You can spam casts all you want and you will still gain the same amount of mana from innervate as if you were in the 5 second rule :) you are just using it up while casting, so obviously you may not notice the ACTUAL mana gain.

(I’m not just basing this off the tooltip – I am a druid healer myself :))

Hell yeah, you can’t overlook Lifebloom. It’s the mainstay of the post-BC druid healer. I cast that more than any other spell when i’m pretending to be a healer for 5-mans as a feral druid.

It rocks for three reasons:
1) high +healing coefficient. it’s something over 40% for the HoT part and 95% if you allow it to bloom.
2) low mana cost. for 220 mana (if i remember correctly) (even less in tree form), it can be kept ticking for a low cost or allowed to bloom. With +1200 healing, that’s approximately 2000 healing for 220 mana. It takes 7 seconds to happen, but in the meantime you can keep casting other heals.
3) that part about threat being applied to the healee rather than the healer is no slouch, much like Frisbee.

One interesting side-note is that a druid has Lifebloom and Rejuvenation as instant-cast spells, and he also can spec to get Nature’s Swiftness for an instant-cast, max-rank Healing Touch once every few minutes. This is good news for fights that require a lot of mobility.

Honestly, i’m levelling my priest alt instead of my other alts because i want a healer, but i’d rather play my druid as one, and i just can’t because my guild really needs him as a tank. I cherish those moments during which i do get to heal… or i would if i could actually use any loot from those instances that i can heal as a feral druid.

I’d like to respond more in depth to this comparison, but I’m on the way out of the door. Real quickly, however, I wanted to make an important correction to your description of Innervate, a misconception that seems surprisingly common among Priests. Regardless of whether or not you are in the 5SR, you will get 500% of your mana regeneration (100% base + 400% more) for the duration of the spell. That’s none too shabby! =)

Melnayo and Roramoon make excellent comments about Lifebloom, truly our sexiest Heal spell. I also wanted to mention Swiftmend, our 31-point talent which converts a running Heal over Time into a burst of healing (12 seconds of Rejuvenation or 18 seconds of Regrowth). This is a really great tool for Restoration Druids since it reduces our reliance upon a) a critical Regrowth (if talented), b) waiting for our HoTs to elapse or Bloom, or c) a 3-3.5 second cast Healing Touch (O.o). It’s sort of our “Lookitmelookitme! I’m like a direct healer!” ability that can be used once every 15 seconds and helps supplement a sometimes ungainly method of returning HPs. Swiftmend is the #1 reason I’ve never been able to try out Dreamstate healing (a popular style which requires a heavy investment into Balance and prevents Druids from picking up Swiftmend).

And here’s Spirit Tap:
Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target that yields experience or honor. For the duration, your mana will regenerate at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 sec.

Notice the VERY similar phrasing about reneration while casting. And every priest with spirit tap experience – which is almost every priest level 20 or higher – knows that this means you get 50% of your regen while in combat and 200% (normal plus another 100% bonus) out of combat. That innervate means what you say is interesting.

And is an example of why I ask for corrections and clarifications and comments. Fascinating, and thank you.

I am very impressed about Lifebloom and the way you can work with it. For example a druid can wear full +heal set, use an on-use trinket like the heroic reward to boost his +heal to a maximum and then cast a lifebloom on the tank before a boss pull. It will tick for a very high amount and the good thing for druids is:

After casting the initial lifebloom he can switch back in his normal heal gear (more manareg and less +heal for example) and he only needs to keep lifebloom active it will still tick as if he would wear the +heal gear and has the trinket activated (but when he let it run out and recast it the heal value would be as it should with the gear he is wearing at the moment).

About…

I've experience with many priests of many races and specs on several servers. The more I play, the more I realize how much I do not yet know. This is a share of some of what I have learned.
My main these days is Zingiber on the Undermine server.